A WORLD medal Wye rower is making waves in the US after finally realising his dream of studying there.

Former Monmouth School for Boys rowing captain Iwan Hadfield has spent the last two years ‘California dreaming’, after winning a sports scholarship to top American university Cal Berkeley only for the pandemic to put everything on hold,

But now the strokeman is Stateside realising his ambitions, leading the ‘Golden Bears’ to the West Coast Pac-12 US college 8s title last week.

Rowing in the US is, like many sports there, college-led.

And victory over Washington’s ‘Huskies’ - the university club featured in Hollywood star George Clooney’s new Boys in The Boat 1936 Olympics film currently being shot at Henley – sets his crew up for the IRA all-America championships in New Jersey at the start of June.

At the 2,000m PAC 12 championships on Oregon’s Lake Dexter, strokeman Iwan led his varsity crew into an early lead they never surrendered in the six-boat final, coming home a length and a half clear of the defending champions in five minutes 36.9 secs.

Victory meant that Cal-Berkeley did the double over Washington having beaten them at Redwood Shores in California in April.

Iwan is one of GB’s brightest young stars, having stroked the GB U18 crew that took bronze at the World Juniors in Tokyo in 2019, and the GB four that took bronze at the World U23 championships in the Czech Republic last year, when he rowed on the Thames at Henley for the world’s oldest rowing club Leander, formed more than 200 years ago.

He was part of the 150th anniversary Monmouth School 8 which won gold at the UK National Schools Regatta in 2019, along with fellow GB U23 squad rower Robbie Prosser-Wrench, who won three golds at the British Universities Championships in Nottingham earlier this month.

School crewmate Jack Tottem was this year’s winning Oxford Boat Race cox as well, and has tasted more success last week after jetting out to Split in Croatia to race in the 20th International Sveti Duje Regatta.

His Dark Blues Legends boat squared off against Cambridge again, and once again won over a sprint race which also featured the local university.

Monmouth School for Boys rowing master Paul Williams said of Iwan’s success: “University of California, Berkeley, is currently the top-ranked crew in the USA and will head to the National Championships in two weeks’ time hoping to beat Yale who recently won the East Coast Championships.”

“Iwan is also likely to race for Cal at Henley Royal Regatta in July and then, hopefully, a GB U23 crew in the summer at Varese in Italy.”